GADHAFI INTERVIEW

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP05-01559R000400440001-6
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 19, 2012
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 26, 1989
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

00A .Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP05-01559R000400440001-6 ior-
APIra
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-Gadhafi Interview,0449
Gadhafi Calls Bush Practical And Says He Wants Dialogue With U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, calling President
Bush a factual and practical man, says he wants to establish a
direct dialogue with the Bush administration, ABC News reports.
In an interview that will be aired on the network's -20-20''
news program Friday night, Gadhafi also said Libya's ''official
position Is that we are against terrorism.''
The United States has said that in order for the two countries
to establish a dialogue, Libya must renounce international
terrorism.
The Libyan leader was interviewed on Monday by correspondent
Barbara Walters in his tent in his Tripoli compound.
Gadhafi, asked his opinion of President Bush, said, ''I know
he's a man who's completely different from (former President)
Reagan. He's a politician, a factual man, a practical...''
''Reagan used to treat the presidency as a theater where he
performs his acts, '' he said through an interpreter.
Gadhafi compared Abu Nidal, head of the Fatah-Revolutionary
Counsel, a hardline offshoot of the Palestine Liberation
Organization, with George Washington.
''Abu Nidal has a fair case. He's defending his people to
liberate his country from the occupation,'' he said.
Asked if he supports Abu Nidal, Gadhafi said, ''No, this is not
the case.'' ''I am against Abu Nidal if he carries out his
operations against innocent civilians,'' he said.
Asked about PLO chairman Yasser Arafat's position that an
independent Palestinian state could live peacefully next to Israel
and that Israel has a right to exist, Gadhafi said, ''We better
wait and see the consequences.''
But then he said, ''It is impossible to establish two states
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.''
Asked about his country's chemical plant at Rabta which the U.S.
government says was built to make poison gas, Ghadafi said, ''This
is a medicine plant.''
He said the ''diplomatic corps, journalists'' would be invited
to the plant for its inauguration but he said neutral observers
could not make repeated visits to it after the opening.
''If this is going to be the case we ought to nominate an
international observing commission to inspect all factories and
plants in the world continuously periodically,'' he said.
Asked about the U.S. air attack on Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986,
Ghadafi said, ''I was at home with my family. I tried to save them
quickly from the place. The other children were in bedrooms. The
little girl was killed.''
He said the child was ''a little girl we adopted from the
orphanage house. ''
''When she was killed she was about 15 months old. We have one
girl, so we decided to adopt this little girl because (our) other
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Thu Jan 26 21:42:33 1989
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Gadhafi tells ABC Libya has only 'medicine plant'
WASHINGTON (UPI) - Moammar Gadhafi, in a wide-ranging interview
with ABC News to be broadcast Friday, denied Libya has developed a
chemical weapons plant, hedged on Israel's right to exist and compared
Abu Nidal to George Washington.
The Libyan leader, branded a madman by the Reagan administration,
also said that ''it irritates me'' to be called insane by the American
news media.
Asked during the interview in Tripoli, Libya, if he would permit
'neutral observers'' to inspect the plant, which the Reagan and Bush
administrations have said is capable of making poison gas, Gadhafi said,
''Yes we can do that, simply because this is a medicine plant.''
But the Libyan leader ruled out continuous monitoring of the
facility. ''If this is going to be the case, we ought to nominate an
international observing commission to inspect all factories and plants
in the world continuously periodically,'' he said through an
interpreter.
Asked if he believed that if Israel allowed a Palestinian homeland
in the occupied territories the Jewish state sould then have the right
to exist, Gadhafi gave a rambling answer that left his position unclear.
''Yes, when all the Palestinians who are living outside Palestine
right now and when all inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and Western Bank
are returned to their respective properties and homeland in occupied
Paslestine. Yes,'' he said.
But later he said, ''It is impossible to establish two states
between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.''
Gadhafi denied that Abu Nidal _ widely alleged to be the mastermind
of many terrorists attacks against Western targets _ is in Libya.
Gadhafi then compared Abu Nidal to America's first president.
''Not only Abu Nidal (but also) Sun Yat-sen, George Washington,
Garibaldi are all the same,'' he said.
Sun Yat-sen led an uprising against the last Chinese dynasty
resulting in China becoming a republic in 1911. Gulseppe Garibaldi was a
19th-century patriot who was instrumental in the formation of the modern
Italian state.
I am against Abu Nidal if he carries out his operations against
innocent civilians,'' Gadhafi said.
Gadhafi denied he has supplied explosives to the outlawed Irish
Republican Army which is waging a campaign to drive the British from
Northern Ireland. He said he understands the IRA's aims but added, ''I
am against the terrorist acts that are carried out by the IRA.''
The Libyan leadeer said he would help to win the release of nine
American hostages kidnapped in Lebanon but implied that he has little
influence with the groups holding them. He said he had called for the
release of all foreign hostages during last Christmas season.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/01/19: CIA-RDP05-01559R000400440001-6